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Friday, September 30, 2011

Perhaps it's a touch of the autism, but my dad really enjoys continuity. Organization. Cleanliness. (We are talking about everything but his booger jeans here.)

And so, much to the chagrin of his six young children, he HATES it when people write in concrete. We were never allowed to do it. Boy would he get annoyed in New Orleans. It's like when a new piece of concrete is poured the whole neighborhood gathers around and writes in it. There isn't one piece of sidewalk that isn't completely littered with writing:

(Side note: these New Orleans water meter covers are pretty famous...)

Which reminds me of a story.

This summer, my Mom and Dad and I were sitting at home when a truck pulled up to our house, honking like he was an old friend. A man with a Southern accent asked if we wanted our driveway asphalted. He was in town working on the road and had some extra, and did we want him and his crew to put some in for us? My dad yelled 'no thanks' and the man drove away. About a week later, a different truck and a different man with a Southern accent drove up and honked and asked us the same question. This time my dad went out and talked to him for about an hour. I was freaking out because I didn't want this snake oil salesman bilking my dad out of thousands of dollars. So I marched outside, stood between them, and grilled that Southern man. Just where the heck was he from? He said Worthington, Minnesota. I asked, "what's your street address?" *pause* THAT'S WHAT I THOUGHT. I said, "don't you think it's a coincidence that just last week another man with a Southern accent came in here trying to sell us asphalt?", and "where are you going to be when we have problems and need to contact you?", and "how are you going to re-sell asphalt to people that the city already paid for?" and "do you have any idea what a full time job it is trying to protect my elderly parents (sorry Mom and Dad) from you shifty salesmen so that they don't spend all of my inheritance???" *ha. There is no inheritance. What a joke.

His bid miraculously went from $16,000 to $10,000 in a matter of five minutes and then down to $8,000. You gotta be kidding me. In the end, of course my dad didn't do it, but we got to thinking about doing something about the dirt floor in the garage.

He decided to shop around locally for a contractor right in Roosevelt who could do the work, and CONCRETE, please. (Who puts asphalt in the garage, anyways?)

We found a guy who did our neighbor's garage floor, and came highly recommended. He came in at his bid. He worked fast. He's even working on future projects for my parents. Everybody wins.

EXCEPT: He was set to pour the concrete the day that I left for New Orleans. And so I wouldn't be able to secretly write my name in the floor of the garage, securing my place as favorite daughter and also world's best prankster. So, I contacted him and told him I would pay him $100 to secretly write 'Kady' somewhere when he was finished. Somewhere inconspicuous, hidden. My plan was that my dad should get mad at me once. Not every day for the rest of his life.

Well, he did it! Free of charge. I was so excited about our little secret. And my dad called me and freaked out when he saw it which was exactly the reaction I was hoping for. It was. Satisfying.

Unfortunately...

Crappy penmanship. And he wrote it WAY TOO BIG. No wonder this kind of thing irritates my dad so much. My mom sent me a photo:

Here it is. In foot-tall letters. That's a standard palate there in the photo.

My mom says it looks like Lucy from The Peanuts wrote it. I guess if you want something done right...you gotta delay your trip to New Orleans.

Search Results

I clicked "Search instead for laundry matt" and found this sorry chat discussion board for Maltese dogs with the following question:

wagi****65

Maltese Guru

Name: B*****

Dog's Name: M****, M**, B**** & T*****

Join Date: Jan 2006

Location: *********, **

Posts: 4,703

I'm so stressed I have to go to the ghetto to wash my comforters. Although I have the extra large machine, it's really not big enough for comforters to swish around and wash really good. Wonder why the ghetto is the only neighborhoods with laundry matts? People in good neighborhoods have things to wash sometimes too. I'm always afraid of catching some kind of nasty desease. What do you do with your comforters? I use to dry clean until I found out they could be washed.

__________________

Ugh. I guess people in "good neighborhoods" are ignorant sometimes too. (Maybe you should train your four dogs NOT to pee on your bedspread so you can avoid all those nasty deseases [sic] that everybody catches at laundry matts [sic].)

I really wanted to believe that the "Laundry Matt" was being "cute", but after I saw its next-door neighbor, the Burrittos Grille LLC...I don't know what to think.

Sunday, September 25, 2011

Sautee fresh green beans in Sesame Oil. Add onion, garlic, and rice vinegar. When they're nice and almost ready, toss in cherry tomatoes (here I have yellows and reds) for a little minute and dust with toasted sesame seeds.

Crushed pepper and a little soy sauce. YUM. And if you have any asian-y salad dressings you can use that too.

Saturday, September 24, 2011

I didn't really have any idea that we'd be caught up in a mail storm of Saint's Fever while here in New Orleans. I couldn't care less about sports, to be sure. I only sort of get into Women's Beach Volleyball during the Summer Olympics but that's because I can't stop staring at their bikini butt wedgies. Hello...? I know I'm not the only one.

*Image stolen from sulekha.com

Anyways, (and this blog post doesn't begin to touch on Saints' Fever) we have tailgating parties outside our balcony on Decatur. They set up a plasma screen TV on the outside of one of our neighborhood businesses and people come on by to watch and be noisy. I'm dying to attend the next one. Unfortunately we had plans to go to dinner with our bosses that night so we couldn't make the festivities.

This is the Superdome where the Saints play. My office is less than a block away. On game days we have to purposely go home early to avoid the crazy traffic it causes.

You should have seen this dude celebrate when that guy scored a really long touchdown during the Green Bay game. He ran throughout the whole restaurant, dancing, arms in the air.

I didn't get that on tape, but here he is being kooky:

Anyway, it's hard not to get caught up in all of it. I have decided to cheat on the Volleyball Butts to get into Football Butts momentarily.